Social Learning Perspective

Following are some Examples of Social Learning in Action

1. Below, in my opinion, is a powerful video showing how an individuals day to day activity can impact children. The behaviours are observed by the child, likely on several occasions, the child has pride in their parents and therefore feels that the behaviours their parents are displaying are appropriate. This is a very good example of observation, modelling, and imitation. The children are reinforced to display the behaviours because the parents are not punishing the child for their bad habits - and the continuation of the parent to display the bad habits only motivate the child to also continue to display the habit. The child could easily be motivated not to reproduce the habits of these adults, it is important for a parent to instil good morals and judgement in their child. This relates back to Bandura's idea that not all observed behaviour is learned. Had the child who threw the can on the ground been informed about the importance of recycling, he or she may have chosen not to litter even though the parent in the clip did. If the child of the man who was making racist remarks, had an Asian best friend he may not have imitated this behaviour, but it is likely he would not have been able to prevent others from displaying the behaviour. Watching the video how many good behaviours are imitated by children? How many inappropriate behaviours? Obviously everyone would not have the same answer to this question because what we as individuals decide is appropriate or not depends on our experiences and upbringing. The video ends with positive behaviour, a man and his child helping a woman who has dropped some items - as an advertisement this is a behaviour they want us as a viewer to observe and pay attention to, retain and reproduce in our every day lives.

2. Below is a recreation of Bandura's Bobo Doll Experiment. You can see from this video where his idea that children can regulate their behaviour stems from. The children decided how to act based on what they observed. If they observed the man being punished, they were likely to regulate their behaviour, and choose not to "learn" what they have observed. They are likely to retain the idea that hitting the doll is bad. Those who saw the man being rewarded were likely to replicate the behaviour, with hopes of being rewarded as-well. Some children chose not to replicate the behaviour of the rewarded man even though they may have retained the information that attacking the doll leads to reward. These children were able to cognitively decide that whether the man was rewarded or not, they felt the behaviour should not be replicated. From this the idea that learning is not a stimulus-response cycle came forth. The child did not simply see something and want to respond in a similar pattern, they took the time to think through the behaviour and decide whether or not it was appropriate for themselves to replicate it. Had learning been a stimulus response cycle, every child viewing the reward video would have replicated the behaviour and every child watching the punishment video would have avoided the behaviour.

3. If we had never observed anyone using items such as a fork or pipe, like Scuttle we would be forced to decide on our own, what they are and what they are used for. This Relates to Bandura's idea that Observational learning is important, and without observing, we would have to rely on ourselves in order to understand what to do.

Later, Ariel reproduces the bahviour of Scuttle at the supper table when she becomes human - only to learn that a dinglehopper in indeed a fork, and not used for hair, but for eating with. Everyone else if familar with a fork and wonders why Ariel is not. It appears to them she has had an inadequate learning experience with forks.